


Terrible as An Army

by glinda4thegood



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Pirates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-21
Updated: 2011-03-21
Packaged: 2017-10-17 04:49:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/173070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glinda4thegood/pseuds/glinda4thegood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post DMC, Pre-Awe. When it came down to it, there was no way Elizabeth could make a <i>wrong</i> choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Terrible as An Army

_Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?" Song of Solomon 6:10_   


"Drink. Against de cold."

People had been telling her what to do her entire life, Elizabett thought rebelliously. What to wear, who to speak with, what to say, what to do, where to be, who to marry . . .

It was subtle, and ongoing. Elizabeth stared into the cup of rum. She looked at the wavering oily reflection in the cup and thought of her father's face when she accepted Norrington's offer. Pleased. Proud. He could pass her off to a man he respected and admired. She would be another man's . . . problem? No, her father had never seen her that way. Challenge, perhaps. The few memories he had shared of her mother seemed to indicate that the challenging aspects of her character did not come as a complete surprise to him.

Elizabeth looked around at the faces of the men who toasted Captain Jack Sparrow. She saw admiration, affection, respect . . . envy?

Will tried to hold her eyes.

 _If I could explain it to myself, I'd explain it to him,_ Elizabeth thought, letting her focus slide off Will to watch Tia Dalma strut around the shack like a hen who'd staked out first rights to the yard.

"Would you sail to the ends of the earth, and beyond . . .?"

Tia Dalma's question caught her off guard, off center.

"Pirate." Elizabeth remembered the amusement in Jack's eyes, heard acknowledgement in his voice. Her breasts hurt and there was a perplexing warmth between her legs as she recalled the sensation of her mouth against his. Rough beard, smooth lips, scent of sandalwood, rum, sweat and lime. God help her, she had wanted to eat him alive.

The notion of sexual intercourse with a man was far from foreign to her. The maids gossiped, laughed, and made pointed comments in her presence that they didn't bother to try and censor. Many of them were younger than she was. The size of Bill the Butcher's cock was the focus of many a coy reminiscence. What he did with that cock was the talk of the entire kitchen staff.

Elizabeth knew what went where, and why. The only mysteries left to her were an explanation of her reactions to the men in her life, and that rite of passage moment between knowing and doing.

 _Will. Childhood friend. Confidant. Teacher. Piece of her soul._

She had imagined what intimacy with Will would be like. The fantasies were pleasing. Over the years she had seen much of his body. His smooth chest and back, strong arms and shoulders. The cord of muscle in his legs through thin cotton breeches. Will was a poem of a man, a creature of grace, action and beauty.

When he finally admitted what the worship in his eyes had been telling her for years, Elizabeth thought nature would take its inevitable course.

Blood rose to her cheeks, heating the tips of her ears, leaving her momentarily breathless. She remembered long, hot afternoons in her father's library, bent over the enormous Bible, ostensibly reading Psalms.

 _By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth;  
I sought him, but I found him not. I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets,  
and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth:  
I sought him, but I found him not."_

Once the ship left harbour, Elizabeth thought bleakly, there were any number of ports for which a crew might set sail. What port they reached in the end . . . well, _time and tides, love._

She shivered in spite of the damp heat, and felt Tia Dalma's eyes and smile touch her with chilling effect.

 _Would you try and rescue Captain Jack Sparrow, after consigning him to a horrendous, violent, watery fate? Would you try and rescue Jack Sparrow knowing what lies between you?_

"I would."

To the four corners of the earth, and beyond, Elizabeth thought, meeting Tia Dalma's bottomless dark eyes without blinking. If that's what she had to do to find what was inked upon his body, burned into his skin. If that's what it took to map the route to discovering Elizabeth Swann.

Her fantasies of intimacy with Jack were unsettling. He was storm tossed and battered. A beat-up tom who probably hid a torn ear behind those thick braids, and a claw-raked buttock under those disreputable breeches. Yet there was strength in him, wiry resilience, and depths of humor and experience that made him altogether irresistable. A sideways look from those darkened eyes had much the same effect on her stomach as the sight of Will's naked chest.

 _Good man. Glib seducer. Thief. Mirror. Jack._

 _His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is altogether lovely.  
This is my beloved, and this is my friend._

Beloved and friend. Elizabeth tilted back the mug and drank off the rum in a long swallow.

"Time to be about the doing, then."

When it came right down to it, there was no way she could make a wrong choice.


End file.
